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One outstanding question in biology is the problem of devel opment: how the genetic instructions encoded in the DNA become expressed in the morphological, physiological, and behavioral features of multicellular organisms, through an ordered sequence of events that extend from the first cell division of the zygote to the adult stage and eventual death. The problem is how a one dimensional array of instructions is transformed into a four dimensional entity, the organism that exists in space and time. Understanding this transformation is, nevertheless, necessary for mastering the process of evolution. One hundred and twenty-five years after The Origin of Species, we have gained some understanding of evolution at the genetic level. Genetic information is stored in the linear sequence of nucleotides in the DNA. Gene mutations, chromosomal reorganiza tions, and a host of related processes introduce variation in the sequence and the amount of DNA. The fate of these variations is determined by interactions within the genome and with the outside environment that are largely understood. We have recently gained a glimpse of how the genome of eukaryotes is organized and will learn much more about it in the future, now that we have the research tools for it.
List of contents
Evolution and Morphogenesis: The Regulator Hypothesis.- Gene Action and Morphogenesis in Plants.- Mobile Elements in Maize: A Force in Evolutionary and Plant Breeding Processes.- Mutation, Apical Meristems and Developmental Selection in Plants.- Properties of Mutable Alleles Recovered from Mutator Stocks of Zea mays L..- Plant DNA Variation and Stress.- Conditio Sine Qua Non for De Novo Emergence of New Genes and the Concept of Primordial Building Blocks.- Organization of Mutant Genes in Mouse t-Haplotypes.- Genetic Analysis of Morphogenesis.- Cell Lineage and Cell Interactions in the Determination of Developmental Cell Fates.- Structure and Regulated Transcription of DIRS-1, A Novel Dictyostelium discoideum Transposable Element.- Developmental Constraints and Evolutionary Saltations: A Discussion and Critique.- Intraspecies Genomic Variation.- Structure and Function of the Human Retroviruses.- The T-DNA Genes of Agrobacterium Plasmids Appear to be of a Complex Evolutionary Origin.
